In a typical municipality electric power is made available to electric power consumers via main power lines, the principal or major circuits of the electric power system. Such main power lines are generally routed so as to be reasonably close to the various residential and business facilities that are to be supplied with electric power. Between the main power lines and the facilities to be supplied with electric power are intermediate circuits that cut in on, or tap, the main power lines. If a main line is supported overhead by a pole, an intermediate circuit therefrom is supported at one end either by the pole or the main power line, and at the other end by attachment directly to the structure of the facility, usually high up on a wall. If the main line is underground, the intermediate circuit is generally run to the facility either in a conduit or as directly buried cable.
An intermediate circuit is eventually run through a main disconnect switch, an electric meter, and an electric distribution panel that divides the intermediate circuit into a plurality of tertiary circuits.
An intermediate circuit generally is encased in some form of protective conduit, such as a pipe or tube that houses the elongated electric conductor, and each conductor for a given facility is generally encased in its own conduit. Such conduits through which the wires (conductors) are run are relatively expensive to install. Electric circuits encased in such conduits may also be difficult and expensive to repair because such conduits do not permit easy access to the wires within, particularly when a conduit is rather long and there is no means of determining where along its length is the site of the problem.
Another type of intermediate circuit presently in use employs metal conductors in solid bar or rod form, instead of wire cables, enclosed in a housing. Such solid bars or rods of metal are generally substantially rigid and uninsulated.
It would be advantageous to provide, as a substitute for such types of intermediate circuits, an electric power distribution device that more conveniently supplies and distributes electric power to multi-unit facilities, for instance convention centers, industrial plants, office buildings, apartment buildings, shopping malls, strip malls and the like, whereby the one may tap into an intermediate circuit for a given unit at a location in close proximity to the unit for which the tap is made. It would be advantageous to provide an electric power distribution device that is less expensive to install, make taps from, and repair than the above described conventional intermediate circuits. It would be advantageous to provide an electric power and distribution device that carries a plurality of electric conductors. It would be advantageous to provide an electric power distribution device to which one or more fused disconnect switches may be integrated at the desired locations anywhere along the length of the electric power distribution device. It would be advantageous to provide an electric power distribution device that includes means for tapping the conductors thereof without removal of the insulation encircling such conductors. It would be advantageous to provide an electric power distribution device that includes a housing unit providing easy access to the conductors held within. It would be advantageous to provide an electric power distribution device that may be used in substitution for a conventional device regardless of whether such conventional device has a single conductor or a plurality of conductors.
These and other advantages of the present invention are described and illustrated in the description of the present invention below.